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Another import from Chicago(though the beer isn’t from Chi, its the closest place to me that offers it), although this one was brought by a lovely lady, however it was brought to me with the top on which was a little disappointing. From what it sounded like this was the best brew offered by Clown Shoes brewing, so I was expecting something pretty good.

This Belgian style IPA came out orange and hazy with some reddish-brown streaks, a pretty cool looking beer, more orange than anything. A little darker orange, kind of like a lighter pumpkin. There was a bubbly inch of big loose head.

The smell was pretty cool, there were the Belgian yeast smells right off the top with some of the IPA hops creeping up as well. Then as the beer warmed and I really got my nose in there I could pick up some weird bananas and cloves, kind of like a hefewiezen. The really cool thing was that it was sort of 1 beer showed up and then the other, first the Belgian ale and then followed distinctly by the Hefe.

The taste was as interesting as the aroma on this beer. Up front it was a thick creamy beer, that brought with it the bitterness of the hops in the IPA part of this beer. The belgian yeasts came across after the hops, although a little bitterness lingers. The malts show up in the end to save the beer with their sweetness.

I liked the bitterness of the hops, they were perfect in the IPA. However the beer was not well blended, you could distinctly taste the different styles, the IPA, Belgian ale and a weird little bit of hefeweizen. Though its not well blended I still enjoyed the fact that I could pick up the different flavors one after the other. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be blended so the flavors couldn’t be picked out from one another, who knows. Either way I liked the beer, this would be one that I would love to try either from the tap or a growler.